Home Staging Slideshow Presentation
QUESTIONI have a question, I am considering getting the staging slide-show presentation for r.e. agent meetings. What do I say if asked if its my work?
ANSWERIt probably won't come up, but you can say, "The images are typical of what I do and I was trained by the creator of the presentation, who is one of the top ranked redesign/staging trainers in the country. My work comes with a 100% satisfaction guarantee, so you can be sure I'll work very hard to please you and your clients."
You have answered the question honestly, but then quickly redirected their attention to you and your commitment to serve them to the highest degree of professionalism. Most people will assume it is your work, especially if they already perceive you as a professional by how you dress and carry yourself.
Your own personal confidence will be the key to whether they hire you or not. Get some experience first before you tackle a group of agents and you'll walk in there with your head held high and be able to easily convince them of your talent and experitise.
Partnerships in Home Staging Business
QUESTIONIs it a good idea to start a business with a friend to have someone to share ideas with or just do it yourself. Thanks for your help.
ANSWERIt can be a good way to lose a friendship. If one winds up doing most of the work but having to the split the profit, that will get old real fast. It takes a pretty unusual combination to do business together happily long term and most partnerships don't work out too well. So I would caution you there.
On the other hand, when you have two people together it can be easier and more fun, but it really depends on the relationship. I have a partner, but we've been partners for 40 years and he doesn't make as much income as I do because he doesn't work at it as much as I do. So you'd want to cover yourself in that regard if you can.
Home Staging Licensing
There is no special licenses required to do home staging, other than the following:
You do need a business license.
If you are selling products, you need a resale license.
If you have employees, you need an employer's identification number.
But if you are a sole proprietor and have no employees and you are just doing consultation services, you only need a business license. At least in most states.
It's always good to check with your local city or town for requirements and certainly your county clerk.
All of this is covered thoroughly in my tutorial called
"Home Staging for Profit".
Home Staging a Lucrative Business
Making money today is just part of what is necessary to reach career level income. You must plan for tomorrow, for next month, next year and into the future. So your marketing efforts and strategies and tactics should be devised with the future in mind, not just what it might bring you immediately.
Lucrative businesses are not built in a day. Lucrative businesses are built over time and repetition. Most businesses fail in the first 1-5 years due to lack of proper planning and execution.
Do-able goals need to be set. You need short term goals and long term goals. Your tactics will help you achieve the short term goals, but it is your overall planning and strategy that will help you achieve the long term goals.
Perseverance is necessary - in fact, critical. No one is going to do the work for you unless you're wealthy already and can hire someone to do it. You've got to develop a "never say die" attitude.
If you believe in yourself, other people will believe in you too.
Then you have to act on that belief.
Atlanta Home Staging
Operating a home staging business in Atlanta is the same as any other part of the country. Where there are homes for sale, there are buyers.
Human nature never changes and is the same all over the world.
While pricing may differ from one part of the country to another, based in part on the cost of living in that state or city, and the competition one faces, the tactics for growing your business are pretty much the same all over.
To boil it down to a nutshell, how many people are you talking to on a daily basis? If you're not communicating with people about your services on a daily basis, your business cannot grow. Communication is key to success.
Next to that, you've got to convey the benefits. Don't talk about features. Talk about benefits. Human nature is the same, remember. People always respond if they believe it will benefit them and if they can afford it.
How to Eliminate Odors at Seller's Home
Tired of walking into a client's home that smells? You know they won't be able to sell the home if there is offensive odors. Odors can come from pet urine or defecation, food, mold, mildew, dust and so forth.
Here's a solution that is light weight, easy to carry. You just plug it in at the home while you're giving a consultation or staging the home. When you leave, you take it with you.
While you are working, the unit is cleaning all of the bad odors out of the room. It doesn't "mask" odors. It actually eliminates them for good.
Sanitizer Details
Presenting a Home Staging Company
QUESTIONPresently, the way it is established is the Realtor presents the home staging concept and that the homeowner would be paying for the services up front and would be getting 1/2 of the staging costs back at closing. If the homeowner doesn't want the service it is declined and I don't ever get into see them. I know I have lost a couple of homes this way. I realize I might have never gotten the clients but I didn't have the opportunity to share from my perspective which might have given them a new outlook and a willingness to spend the money.
This is the change I want to do. I am going to request that the Realtors make an internal assessment and if they think my services would be useful, they merely inform to homeowners that this service is available, hand them my brochure and
tell them I would be in touch to set up a meeting and discuss their options.
What do you think of this new approach?
The Answer Here
Asset Building Strategies for Home Staging
Sadly many people will offer to teach you how to start a home staging business, but they are not equipped to teach you how to really make it successful and enduring.
Consequently business owners, if they are successful at all, never even think about building a business they can sell for a lot more money than they take in each year.
This is called "asset value".
It should be one of the major wealth creations you achieve from all your efforts.
If you create strategic marketing systems, processes and procedures that work hard for you and continue to work hard for you, people will stand in line for the "privilege" of buying it from you.
But you must have an "asset-building strategy" in place. You never know what the future will hold. So think about the net worth of your business and create strategies that will make it very attractive to other people to purchase.
Home Staging Checklist
Using a checklist will make the job of staging a client's home very, very easy. You can be sure by following the checklist that you haven't forgotten to manage a task.
Just as important, on the front end, when you are making recommendations in a consultation, or trying to estimate a price that is fair to the agent or to the home seller, a check list will help you estimate the time factor for each task and whether there are any costs associated with the task: like paint, hardware, repairs that require purchases, and so on.
A checklist is also handy to give to a client who is going to do all of the work themselves.
I have a 25-page checklist (8-1/2x11 sheets) - really thorough, if I say so myself - that comes in "Home Staging for Profit". It covers every room in the house plus the front, back and sides of the house.
Read more:
Home Staging for Profit.
Make Money in Staging Services
Every great business achiever works smarter than their competitors AND they play harder.
Would it surprise you to know that many of them might work for six months, then take off a month? Or they worked four days and then took off the next three. Or they worked a year and then relaxed for three months.
Why would they do this? Were they lazy? Far from it.
They knew that they needed to reinvigorate their creativity and nourish themselves.
If you want to build a business that drives massive lifetime financial rewards to you, you've got to take time for yourself. By nurturing your own creativity, you just might discover a windfall profit generating system within your business that you are presently unaware of.
Staging Home for Sale
You've worked hard to prepare your client's home for sale. You've done all the right things inside the home. Are you done?
No. Unless you worked on the exterior too.
When Staging your client's home (or your own home for that matter), don't forget the impact that first impressions make.
So thoroughly check the view of the home from the curb. You need to make sure you ahve a clear path from the curb to the front door. Is the path clean and free of debris? Do bushes, flower beds and shrubs need to be clipped? Are there any pet droppings? How about hazards?
Is the address plain to see and easily seen?
For a full checklist of tasks for the exterior (as well as the interior of any home), you might want to get a copy of "Home Staging for Profit". Whether you're looking to start a home staging business of your own, or just stage your own home, you'll find the 25-page check list really valuable.
First impressions are everything. Make sure your's are the best they can be.
Building Future Income in Home Staging
If your business doesn't have highly predictable, strategic and long term revenue-generating procedures in place - procedures that will assure you of continuous flow of sales that will keep flowing to you in the future - then you
don't have a business at all.
What you have instead is a "promotion".
There is a big difference.This is a subject that I address in my book "Advanced Redesign", but it applies to home staging as well. For now, however, you need to think about how you're going to formulate some recurring streams of income, minor or major profit centers that will sustain you long term and expand your cash flow.
This is what will assure your business will have a thriving tomorrow.
When I started my business I had one softcover book and one ebook. Nine books later and a host of tools of the trade later I have a business that will survive in the future and one I can pass on to my children.
Where will your business be in 5 years? 10 years? 25 years?
Plan for the future, not just for tomorrow.
Whether to Remove Wallpaper in a Staged Home
QUESTIONI will be selling my home in the next month or two. I have wallpaper everywhere. Do you recommend removing the wallpaper?
ANSWERIf the wallpaper is very neutral and in excellent condition, it will probably be ok to leave it.
However, if the wallpaper is busy, highly stylized, colorful or attracts a lot of attention, or is in poor or average condition, it's best to remove it and paint the walls a neutral color.
The easiest way to sell a home is to have the background (walls, ceiling, floors) plain and simple and in a neutral color (white, off white, beige, light tan).
Here’s a link for tips on removing wallpaper:
Removing Wallpaper
Doing Three Businesses at Once
QUESTIONHelp!! I have recently decided to start a home organizing business but I have become increasingly interested in the related areas of home redesign and home staging. . . . I know that offering all three services may be difficult, but
I feel that it might be the best approach at first as there may be a limited market for each. . . . Could you offer some wisdom?? Thanks.
ANSWERHow well any of the businesses does will depend largely on a number of factors, but here are some of the top ones:
1) Are you likable?
2) Do people tend to trust you?
3) Do you have good visuals for them to "see" how the services have helped other people? (we have those for you already)
4) Do you do a good job of stressing "benefits"?
5) Do you enjoy people and want what's best for them over what's best for you?
6) Do you have homes for sale in the area that don't sell quickly?
7) Do you have lots of real estate agents to contact (for staging)?
8) Do you have a good supply of middle income homeowners within reasonable driving distance?
People hire people they like and trust. If you convince them that what you have to offer will really benefit them and it's affordable, you'll get business no matter where you live. Human nature is the same no matter where you live.
Home Staging Word of Caution
WARNING! WORD OF CAUTION!
Our training is very affordable - don't take those high priced seminars or home study courses that are full of fluff and fillers or that are over the top expensive, where they try to convince you that you can't be successful without them or in a hands-on class environment!
It's totally unnecessary and rather foolish, if you ask me. Don't get fooled into believing you have to belong to their pricey organizations or become licensed by them at the tune of $6500 per year. That's pure nonsense! I've never fallen for that stuff and you shouldn't either.
I just ran across a trainer in the northern hemisphere charging for teleconference fees and licensing her business name for $6500 per year. I am totally shocked. I have never been associated with any organization ever and getting business is not that hard to do.
Be careful. Shop around for your training just like you would when buying a car. Be smart. Don't fall for all the spin going on out there in home staging and redesign. |
Three Types of Entrepreneurs
In the business world, there are 3 types of entrepreneurs.
1) The people that things keep happening to -
2) The people who watch things happen all around them -
3) The people who constantly and continuously make things happen.
But whether you fall into group 1, 2, or 3, we all have this in common: We all want our business to
do more,
have more,
reach farther and
achieve more, both financially and emotionally.
The problem is in knowing how to achieve that.
Over the next 5 days, I'm going to give you the five factors of building wealth for your business. Write them down on paper and place them in strategic places where you work as a reminder. They will help you stay focused on what you need to do.
FACTOR 1Work to constantly increase your current income and profits. Sounds obvious doesn't it? You'd be amazed at how many people don't focus attention on this. If your business isn't multiplying each year (multiplying income, multiplying profit level, multiplying cash flow), then you aren't able to invest internally in ways that will grow your business, nor can you invest externally in more marketing activities. And you certainly won't be able to invest outside your business to develop passive income and build your net worth from other income avenues.
So make sure you are first focused on making sure your business is increasing its income and profits.
